


A Castle Out of Blankets and Chairs

by Siobhan_Schuyler



Category: Glee
Genre: Amnesia, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2012-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-30 22:23:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siobhan_Schuyler/pseuds/Siobhan_Schuyler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One foot in front of the other.  There are things you don't forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Castle Out of Blankets and Chairs

**Author's Note:**

> This was initially going to be a WIP, but there are already so many amazing stories with this exact plot out there, I'll let this one as a one-off. :)

 

The truth is, he's fine.

Still damp from his shower, Kurt runs the flat of his hand over the foggy mirror to take a look at himself.  He sees nothing out of the ordinary. Perfectly normal eyes, ears, mouth. An afternoon's worth of stubble at his jaw, prickly when he scratches at it.  The bruise darkening his cheekbone and lightly around his eye socket will be gone in a couple of days.  He presses the pads of two fingers to it gingerly, pulling back when the touch stings more than he expected.

He wonders who shaved him, back at the hospital.  A nurse, maybe.  Or his dad, or Carole.  He smiles ruefully at the thought of Finn's hands, big and unwieldy like well-meaning shovels, trying to handle a razor on someone who can't lift their chin or turn their head or jump and swear when nicked. 

It was probably a nurse.

Kurt carefully unfolds the blue pajamas he left on the toilet lid and slips into the bottoms, then the top, buttoning it up carefully. The doctor said he might have trouble with some finer motor skills for a while, but he's been doing fine, even tried to sew just to prove to himself that he could. There is a hand towel in the small duffel of belongings he'd been brought from home with half a dozen mismatched buttons sewn to it and a perfect hemmed edge. He's _fine._

He combs his hair and brushes his teeth and flosses, and he knows where those things are, just like he knows to rinse out the sink when he's done and hang his towel to dry on the hook behind the door.

He takes his time but quickly runs out of the little ritualistic things that are keeping him in here.  Eventually he flips the light switch off slowly and pauses, halfway out, toes on the plush carpet of the bedroom, heels on the cooler bathroom tiles, the thin metal ridge between the two digging into the arches of his feet.

After a moment he makes himself move forward, across the carpet, towards the bed.  One foot in front of the other.  There are things you don't forget.

"Found everything all right?" Blaine asks from the bed, looking at Kurt over the top of his reading classes.

Blaine is sitting against his pillows propped up against the dark wood headboard, legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles, barefoot.  He's wearing old sweatpants with "Columbia" written down one thigh in Trajan Pro, the glue of the white collegiate letters cracked with age, and a thin white v-neck, the collar a little stretched out. There's a magazine in his lap opened to the same article on he'd been pretending to read when Kurt went to shower.

Kurt lets himself look at his husband, at the coziness of him, the bare feet and the tousled hair and his own scruffy cheeks; at the comforting setting, the pristine ecru sheets and the plush duvet and the glass of water on Blaine's nightstand, next to his watch.

He lets himself look because he feels nothing of the familiarity and the comfort he knows these things should inspire.  Just like he has no idea who picked out those sheets, what Blaine majored in at Columbia, and how long he's owned that stupid Tintin watch.  All Kurt feels is an objective appreciation for the beauty of a room well put together, and the handsomeness of the man on the bed.

"Yes, I found everything okay. Thank you," he says kindly, evenly.

He slips under the duvet, aware of Blaine watching him, careful. Careful like he's been since Kurt met him nine days ago, when he'd woken up at Mount Sinai with a bitching headache, a father who'd suddenly (if momentarily) found Jesus, and a good-looking man who turned out to be his husband of seven years. Kurt could remember what he'd been doing right before the accident, who the president was, and his own address, but not that he shared it with someone whose name was next to his on the mortgage papers.

Blaine had smiled at him, and cried a little, which had made Kurt apologize, which had made Blaine cry harder, though through a smile, squeezing Kurt's hand before letting go of it reluctantly.  He hasn't touched him since but he hasn't cried and he's smiled plenty, even if sometimes it didn't reach his eyes.  Kurt wonders if Blaine's easy, sometimes stoic smile is what had made Kurt fall in love with him.  He supposes he'll never know for sure.  He just... doesn't remember.

He does remember how he likes his pillows, and he arranges his carefully, tries not to feel like every mundane recollection is a soft blow to Blaine's heart, what Kurt can see of it right there on his sleeve.

Avoiding Blaine's gaze, Kurt catches sight of the book on his nightstand, dogeared two-thirds of the way through, and he remembers the chapter he'd just finished, ten days ago, the part with Spider and Fat Charlie and the lime.

"You, um."  Blaine starts and stops next to him, pulling Kurt out of his thoughts.  Kurt looks over at him.  Blaine tries again.  "Do you want some tea?  I usually make you tea before bed, and we read for a while, until we're too tired, or--"  He stops himself again, flinching.

"Sure," Kurt says, not willing to let Blaine beat himself up for whatever it is he just regretted saying.  "Tea would be nice."  And it's not a lie, not exactly.  Tea _would_ be nice, but mostly he just wanted to see Blaine smile like that, relieved, and watch him slip out of bed and pad out of the bedroom heading for the kitchen, navigating their apartment in the quasi-dark. Familiarity.

Kurt sits in bed and listens to the distant sounds of someone making tea: the water filling a kettle, mugs being taken out of a cupboard, tea canisters being popped open.  He thinks he hears a sniffle, maybe two, but then there's only the dead silence of someone gone achingly still as the kettle ticks to life.


End file.
